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WALTHER FARMS TO SELL ACREAGE AT AUCTION

Published online: Feb 20, 2009

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The sale will include seven farms between Saginaw and Flint, Mich., largely made up of high-quality farmland, says Ed Boyer, who is managing the project for Schrader Schrader Auction Co. of Columbia City, Ind.

The land is well tiled and irrigated, ensuring productivity during wet and dry periods.

`Grandma and Grandpa always believed in putting the land to its best possible use, and we're following the same strategy by putting this excellent land in the hands of people whose focus is on crops such as sugar beets, soybeans, corn and wheat, for which the soil types are best suited," Walther Farms president Jason Walther says.

The sale also includes several sites suited for commercial, recreational and development, as well as for building. The property also has six Valley Center Pivot irrigators.

"This land will sell in 27 different tracts, ranging from about 1.2 acres to approximately 228 acres," Boyer says. "Bidders will have the opportunity to purchase individual tracts as well as combinations of tracts, so there will be opportunities for large and small buyers alike."

Walther Farms was named Frito-Lay's National Potato Supplier of the Year in 2008. It is a third-generation, family-owned business headquartered in the southwest region of Michigan. Starting in the 1940s, the company expanded from a few vegetable acres of backyard hobby farming, to what has now become 14,000 acres of commercial and seed potatoes grown in the Midwest U.S. and in Northern Mexico for the potato chip market.

Commercial operations are located in the central region of Michigan, southern Indiana and Florida, with the majority of acres farmed in southwest Michigan. High-quality seed potatoes are grown in an isolated area of both the northern Lower Peninsula, and the eastern region of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The operation expanded into the northern region of Mexico as well, where both commercial and seed operations are underway.